#also not showing the back bc there's some crooked stitches there rip

[heartoferebor]

My biggest leatherworking project to date! I learned a ton whilst making this - there’s still a few minor errors but overall I’m so happy with how it turned out. I really wanted a new shoulder bag and I love the design of Regis’ bag in Blood & Wine so I thought, why not make it ;). I patterned it from scratch after the references and then cut, dyed, tooled & handstitched the leather. Leather dye is Fiebing’s Mahogany in 50:50 solution. For an added touch I also lined the entire bag with some burgundy suede (and added a shoulder patch to make it easier to carry).

Unfortunately I don’t have the skills/materials to make my own brass fittings yet, so everything except for the buckles/rings/screws that’s probably brass in Regis’ bag I carefully tooled out and then painted with gold leather paint.

Reference pictures under the cut:

[toynbeees]

idk i felt like doing a breakdown of how I imagine post-game wendigo!josh in a saved AU since im back into until dawn again lmao. bear with me bc im super tired and only like half coherent but im trying

Appearance Okay so we all know wendi!Josh has that gross torn open mouth & sexy sharp teeth. Blind eye? Weird second white eyelid like reptiles have? But yeah these are my hc on wendi!Josh’s appearance.

-His ripped up jaw looks like a really extreme Chelsea/Glasgow Smile that’s torn up mid way to his ear with a couple of extra gashes spreading towards his eye. It looks super gnarly and painful but actually, it’s just a by-product of his jaw stretching to accommodate the extra teeth. The extra gashes heal up and yeah, he’s left with a stretched mouth that exposes half the inside of his mouth and makes Heath Ledger’s Joker look like a harmless cartoon character. It’s basically how his jaw is supposed to be in order to adapt to the fangs, though. The fangs themselves have entirely replaced all of his regular human teeth, not just the gross side, but they’re smaller and flatter on his “human” side - his wendigo side is filled with razor sharp teeth that stick out at odd angles since his mouth hasn’t really stretched enough to fit them. He can’t close his mouth great because of it and the teeth dig into his lower lip if he tries. Later on, he probably gets them filed down as best he can - which still leaves them too big for his mouth and peeking through, but at least they’re blunter and not quite so huge. Surgeons can’t do much for his mouth, though, as the skin around there is too tough to stitch/graft and anyway, the stretched gash is kind of needed in order for his teeth to fit, filed or not.

-his nails are also super sharp and talon-like, thick curled claws. They’re darker than regular nails too, almost black, making them look pretty fucking creepy. They’re tough, designed for ripping apart prey and skinning them, which means he has to be suuuuper careful when touching anything fragile. He files them down, which takes a fucking age because they’re so tough, but it helps make them not quite so dangerous.

-he isn’t actually blind, though the milky eye on the wendigo side suggests he should be. Wendigo eyes are just pale, like the rest of them, and although Josh’s sight isn’t as good as it used to be he isn’t completely blind. His sight is fuzzier than it used to be, designed for detecting movement than noticing details - but since he isn’t fully transformed he doesn’t have total “wendigo sight”, which is good. They do kind of glow in the dark though, like reflective lights. The eye on his human side is a little messed up too; his eyelid is damaged and kind of receded back which makes it look wider than his other eye. Maybe he clawed at it, trying to stop hallucinations or maybe it happened when Hannah dragged him away. His white eye is corrected with coloured contacts, nice and easy. His receded eyelid is fixed with surgery, leaving him with a small scar but it heals to almost nothing.

-although Josh isn’t totally wendigo, his body has started to elongate - mostly his limbs, though torso too. He went from five-foot-something (5′7 if we’re talking Rami’s height) to well over six foot. He’s... mostly in proportion still at least, except for the fact he’s a lot thinner and more spindly than he was before. This fingers are elongated too, more emphasized by the claws.

-I like the idea that Josh grows antlers just for the hilarity of it. Something slender like a chital deer maybe, but much smaller. He grows them in early spring (April-ish) and sheds them once summer starts to cool down in August-September.

Voice His wendigo transformation isn’t just physical! His voice is drastically different though still vaguely Josh-like, but there’s a lot of new and very weird quirks in his voice he didn’t have before.

-Josh’s voice is a lot raspier than it was, deep and gritty like a long time smoker with a slight, growly undertone that’s present even when he tries to be soft. It basically sounds like someone who’s started to lose their voice, but permanent. Actually speaking seems more difficult for him now, and his words are either too slow in concentration or come out all at once in a rush if he’s panicking. There’s no middle ground.

-when Josh is excited or happy, he makes these high pitched trills and chittering sounds that sound almost like a bird if not for the eerie humanness to them. A lot of the time these noises happen completely of their own accord, a kind of subconscious thing he doesn’t pay much attention to. He makes deeper, slower versions of these noises when he’s quietly content;  for example if he’s about to fall asleep or curled up comfortably on the sofa.

-when he’s angry or startled, though, Josh makes loud, inhuman screeches that really sound like something out of a horror movie. They’re shrill, loud and if people aren’t expecting it, it can give quite a scare. It’s something he always apologises profusely for after but like when people get a fright and scream, he can’t help it.

-growling is also a common thing, usually when he’s pissed off - or, occasionally, using it as a warning. Josh will duck low when he does this, adopting a defensive stance, hands resting on the floor and letting a deep growl low in his throat. This is one of those things that is completely intentional, an intimidation tactic, and usually one that works.

-his laugh isn’t much of a laugh any more - it’s more of a raspy coughing sound that’s sometimes interrupted by shrieks, like when a person snorts. Since laughing isn’t something people can really control there’s not much he can do to try and change it, but sometimes he tries to make his laugh more human. It usually ends up a creepy mess of wendigo and human.

Habits The wendigo in him makes Josh a little less... human in his actions. Everything has a vaguely creepy, uncanney valley feel about it now, mostly caused by his appearance but partially because some of the stuff he does is just damn weird

-Josh was pretty tactile before; no sense of personal space. It's even more obvious now and he seems to seek out physical contact a lot for comfort. Wendigos aren't social creatures so while his ways of showing affection aren't too human, the reasons for it certainly are. His favourite thing is to nuzzle into the crook of someone's neck and, if they're sitting, curl his limbs around them as if they're a human sized pillow. This is usually accompanied by the weird chittering sounds he makes.

-like all wendigos Josh can imitate people perfectly, which is pretty fucking cool. He can mimic anyone as long as he hears themsay the words, but if he knows a voice well enough he can mimic it without needing to hear something first. He often mimics by accident - if someone asks him a question and he's thinking it over, if he doesn't understand something or even if he just isn't paying attention to his words. It’s fun to use it to mess with people too, though.

-while his ceiling hanging skills aren't much on a full wendigo, Josh can scale pretty much any surface and cling to it for a while. His claws dig into the surface, fingers padded with a rough texture for extra grip. To make it easier to climb, Josh's elongated limbs a d torso are super flexible. He can hang from a ceiling if he really wants, but that will probably end in him falling face first to the floor.

-he doesn't blink as much now, which gives the impression he's staring at people or off in a daydream. It's extra creepy without the contacts, white eye on show. It's a tactic wendigos use to keep track of prey, so they don't lose sight of their food, but since Josh doesn't need to hunt it's just that he forgets blinking is a thing he should do.

Eating Human food is still essential since he's mostly human. That hasn't changed - except now he needs extra nutrition too.

-Josh eats a lot more meat than he used to. Doesn't matter what cut or what animal - as long as it's raw he's good. He can eat it cooked - and if he's eating a regular meal it will be - but raw meat and animal blood are a big part of his diet now. Wendigos are pure carnivores so it makes sense he has similar eating habits. 

-of course, since munching on a human corpse, regular animal meat isn't what he really craves. He only ate one bite down in the mines but it was enough to start some serious cravings for chowing down on a hunk of human being. The raw meat helps these cravings, but that doesn't mean they're totally gone. It's something Josh angsts about a lot.

Sleeping Of course turning half wendigo fucked up his sleeping pattern. Sleeping pills help, the rest he has to deal with alone. Sharing a bed with someone else helps.

-wendigos are nocturnal, sensitive to sunlight and vision suited to the dark. Josh is stuck half way between, sleepy during the day but unable to sleep at night. It's like his body is nocturnal but his mind isn't. On the bright  it's like he has an internal clock that always lets him know the time of day. Unfortunately it also means he's exhausted half the time. This is later helped with sleep meds, iron pills to supplement what he doesn't get from blood and short naps in the afternoon.

-rather than sleeping on a bed with covers/duvets, Josh loves sleeping in a kind of nest. Bed, sofa or floor - it doesn't matter as long as he has a pile of cushions and blankets. Living on a snow covered mountain he was used to freezing conditions with lots of layers to stay warm. It's unclear whether this is a trait he shares with wendigos or simply the result of having to make do in the mines and the subsequent recovery.